This refers to a word, phrase or sentence that makes sense when reversed, but is not the same as the original. Confused? Take ‘diaper’ for instance… When you reverse it you get ‘repaid’. Or ‘god’ reversed gives you ‘dog’.
A semordnilap is the brother of the palindrome – a string of letters that reads the same backwards and forwards (“A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!”; “Was it a car or a cat I saw?”).
Did you notice that ‘semordnilap’ is ‘palindrome’ spelt backwards? We call this self-referential because it encapsulates within itself the thing that it represents.
Source: World Wide Words
